


Atlas

by catboysam, Kahnah



Series: Asterism [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Different Worlds, Gen, Mentions of Death, Multiverse, Sorry guys, the other guys are only mentioned as well, this will only make sense if you read Gemini Dream and the Royalty-verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 05:52:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7878997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catboysam/pseuds/catboysam, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahnah/pseuds/Kahnah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atlas is the god of endurance and astronomy, condemned to hold up the sky for eternity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Atlas

**Author's Note:**

> And here we have a short OneShot I wanted to get out there before I started posting Unfolding Time!
> 
> This basically happened because I was wondering what would happen if the Gavin from the Royalty-verse (who is trying to protect Michael throughout the timelines, poor child) and Pollux (the first Gavin from Gemini Dream) would meet.
> 
> Because my multiverse is too complicated and apparently that's a thing that could happen.

He was waiting on top of a roof. It was one of the few intact ones, the highest one around, and from here he could see the destruction so well. The bombed buildings, the few souls still struggling against the red dust settling everywhere.

On the fresh green, on the manmade grey and in their lungs.

From higher up it looked like a field of roses, like lakes of wine.

But it only brought death.

A bird passed him and he looked up. It was the first he had seen since he had started to watch, weeks ago. They were one of the first animals who had met their ends, the red dust making their feathers stick together, and they had all fallen from the clouds above.

This one here though, left a trail of sparks behind as it fluttered towards the edge of the building. It shifted in a glimmer of heat, feet finding the ground before the man was completely there. The sparks turned to a green scarf, the feathers into a long cloak, ripped from hundred worlds.

The newcomer was gasping for breath, looking around the dead ground beneath as he stalked along the edge. He left no footprints in the red dust as he searched for someone that was long gone.

"You're too late this time, Gavin."

The man turned around surprised. His eyes were slowly turning back to green from black and when he looked closer, he could see snow in them. It was falling upwards.

"It's you," the bird gasped out and he sent him his name, sent him what he needed to know and he spat it out like a curse, "Pollux."

"Netherwalker," he greeted him back and Gavin snarled at him.

"Are you chasing me around? I caught glimpses of you before!"

"We have chosen a lonely existence," Pollux admitted. "Surely you also search for company from time to time."

"We're nothing alike!" Gavin snapped at him. "You just stand there and watch! I do something, I change things! I can save them, I can save  _ him !" _

"I know you do. I watched you before. You led him when he was lost, showed him the way in the darkest times."  _ Polaris. _ Truly, it was a more fitting name. "But it saddens me that you think so less of me just because we follow different goals."

Gavin huffed and turned away. "I owe him," he muttered as he wrapped his arms around himself. His sleeve rid a bit up and showed a pale mark around his wrist. There was another, slashed over his heart, Pollux could feel it. "I have to repay the debt."

"And I have to keep the cycles from twisting and ending up like this one here," Pollux reminded him and when Gavin turned back towards him, his eyes were sad.

"Why didn't you stop it here then? Maybe I could have been in time!"

"It was meant to happen. And what would you have done? You can't save him in every timeline, you know that. You being here wouldn't have helped him breathe any better."

"I should have tried." He was begging now, a hand clawing at his own chest right over his heart. "I should have saved him! I owe him, he brought me out!"

"This Michael is dead," Pollux told him and saw how much it pained the other. "Even you getting here early wouldn't have prevented it. You are no God, just a distorted being. Like a star, appearing in a different spot at night. You're not only missing from your own constellation but adding to other pictures you have no business being in. They are not yours,  _ he's _ not yours. And most certainly you are not theirs."

It was a harsh truth, but it didn't seem to cut the other. So he had already realized that himself. Pollux watched as the hand over the other's chest tightened, feeling for the mark settling the deal that freed him.

"So what now?" Gavin whispered. "Will you destroy me? Will you put me to rest because I am distorting the cycles?"

He had thought about it before. There was a lot of time to think now.

"Not yet and not in the future, as vague as that term has become. Your influence isn't important enough to shake things up as long as you just concentrate on this one person. See this as a warning."

Gavin nodded before letting his eyes travel over this red, red world ,and then he smiled a lonely little smile.

"My Ray would have loved this. Even if it meant death and destruction, he would stand with me here on this very roof and watch it."

"Don't you miss him?"

"That won't stop me."

"That wasn't the answer to my question."

Gavin threw him a look  before raising his arm, a finger trailing over the mark on his wrist. "Of course I do," he breathed. "All of them. But I know that they will wait for me. They promised me and they understood that I... I had to do this. That I am the only one able to."

"Netherwalker," Pollux repeated. "The one who escaped."

"Not thanks to me," Gavin reminded him. "I did nothing."

"Don't go back there," Pollux told him and the other looked up. "Do you know what I see in your eyes?"

"In my eyes?"

"There's snow. And it's falling upwards, Gavin."

Those eyes widened in blank fear and if he would look closer, he would be able to count the flakes. "You have to remind yourself, Gavin. All you do, all those worlds - you always rush in when horrible things are happening. You watch them destroy each other, you watch other destroy them while you try so hard to protect at least Michael, while you try to guide him to safety. Take a step back, stay a bit longer or visit those worlds where you're not needed. Remind yourself what you do it for. If you don't, if you forget the good times and see only ends like this one here... it will drag you under."

“I can’t rest.” It was a frantic, little whisper. “If I rest I will be too late like I am right now. I can… I can fight against it.”

“You will save those who you are able to save,” Pollux told him. “Believe me, I’ve been there before. You can only steer them into the right direction but not avoid the path they chose. If you get dragged under by the snow again, you will never see those who are yours again.”

Gavin’s shoulder sank, his eyes huge and begging for him to say something different but they both knew it would change nothing. 

“I’ll end up alone again,” Gavin finally whispered.

“Just like you always feared.” Those had been in his words, even now Pollux could hear them echo.

_ They will leave you. They don’t want you. _

“Doesn’t it make you angry?” Gavin asked, shaking his head. “Not being able to do something? I am only able to… just small touches, some words to try to get him into the right direction. There’s nothing more that I can do!”

“I am way past angry,” Pollux admitted before huffing amusedly. “And it’s a lot. Doing just that is enough. That’s why you should stay for a while, see how things turn to light, to hope after the darkness.”

“How can we make it stop?” Gavin asked suddenly and Pollux couldn’t help but frown.

“Stop what?”

“This sorrow, this fighting.” He took in his face before stepping closer. “You’re the first, aren’t you? The cycles began with you.”

Pollux didn’t have to answer because the other just nodded. “I know that it’s true. I can tell, there are stars in your eyes.”

“So what?”

“We can stop it,” Gavin went on and touched his hand. He didn’t seem to notice how his arm fractured like glass. “If we go back, if we change the beginning. If you don’t make your wish… we could prevent so much pain from happening.”

What a dangerous idea. One he also had before, during all those lonely nights in worlds that were burning out, during nothingness as he waited to head into the next one.

It seemed logical, a second chance, a choice to make things better.

Only that it wasn’t.

“You can’t destroy, Gavin,” he told him softly. “You can change but you can never destroy. Those cycles would still exist because you and me… we would still be here.”

“I don’t care if we fade! We can disappear along with the cycles!”

“Then there would be nobody to stop me from making my wish. It would just start all over again.” He curled his hand around the other one. It was strange, it had been so long that he had touched someone that wasn’t Geoff. He couldn’t even remember who the last one had been.

“If you stop me from making the wish you will not stop these cycles, you will create new ones. For each timeline with one of us, there will appear one without us. Sure, there might be ones that would go on just fine but just as many won’t.”

Anger brewed in Gavin’s eyes before it spilled over, twisting his face. He let go of Pollux, stepped out of his reach. “Are you happy then?” he spat as he shook his arm out as if that would make the cracks disappear. “Was your wish worth it, Pollux? All this suffering, all these tears! I hope you got what you wished for!”

What hateful words but it seemed only natural. He could understand those feelings, had felt them himself.

All those times ago when he had tried the same things as Gavin. Changing things, protecting those he loves and find a solution, a way to stop all of this. It had taken too long to understand how futile that was.

“I did,” he finally said. “I got my wish. Just as you did. We all did.”

Something like understanding flickered over Gavin’s face but he was still fighting against it, didn’t want to admit it just yet.

Pollux offered him his hand.

“Let me show you and you shall judge for yourself.”

Gavin hesitated but Pollux knew that he would cave in. The other had tried before to go back to that moment but he had always managed to stop him. His curiosity would get the better out of him like it so often did.

The hand was cold in his as he held tight and turned around. It was a handful steps, off the edge of the building and away from the red death around them.

The following brightness was blinding and Pollux shielded his eyes with his free hand. The eerie silence carried over in the winter silence until a gasp broke it.

Gavin’s hand dared to slip from his and he quickly grabbed him by the wrist. 

“Don’t-” he started to say as he turned around but stopped when he saw the haunted expression of the other.

Gavin tried to tear himself free, tried to get away the moment he saw the snow and the lake beyond. He had known that they would come here but he had to underestimate his own reaction.

Pollux had done the same returning here for the first time.

“No-” Gavin gasped out and stumbled backwards. He fell into the snow and pulled Pollux along. “Take me back! Let me go, I wanna go home! I can’t be back he-”

“Gavin,” Pollux called him sharply. “It’s not The Truth! Look at the snow, it’s falling down!”

“No!” Still, he tried to escape, to wiggle free but Pollux couldn’t let him go.

To lose him here, for him to get lost in this memory would be the end. There were too many loose ends around he could get tangled up in, too many timelines connecting at this point. He could feel others around, could feel himself just a few steps away.

He wasn’t quite sure what would happen once they met.

So he wrapped Gavin in his arms and the other clung to him, hiding his face against his chest, and it was so strange. It had been so long since he had held anyone.

It wasn’t allowed, he could feel Gavin crack beneath his touch and knew that he wouldn’t be able to take him any further.

It was too soon to show him the tree and the lake again. Way too soon to show him who carried him there.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into the unruly hair as the other shook apart against him. “You are just searching for answers and I think you should know… I should have considered this reaction, I should ha-”

“Your wish,” Gavin brought out, his face white in shock as he looked up. “What is your wish?”

Pollux stared down at him as the snow fell onto their heads and shoulders. It was cold out here; it was always cold going near this timeline, and he pulled his cloak around both of them.

It was made out of stardust and sparkled in the dark.

“I wished for a family,” he confessed in a hushed voice. “Someone to love me. Two siblings I could play and have fun with because I’ve been denied that before. I wished for someone to look out for me, to protect me. I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I just wanted a home, no matter how broken and dysfunctional it may be. Just somewhere to come in and be warm by the fire, knowing I was safe.”

He fell silent, pulling the other closer to escape his eyes as he whispered, “I just wanted… just wanted a family.”

It grew quiet around them because snow made no noise. Just like a ghost or a memory. They sat in between there and he figured it was true.

This place was filled with ghosts and memories.

Of a haunting song that surely was sung somewhere.

“You bound us together,” Gavin breathed out. “Us six. That never changed.”

“I created a fixed point, one of the few of each cycle,” Pollux admitted. “But some strings were already tied before I was born. There was something connecting me with Michael and Ray, connection we all felt as soon as we laid eyes on each other. That wasn’t me but someone before.”

“Still. You allowed us to find each other,” Gavin pressed on. “So in each timeline… we are together?”

Pollux nodded. “Maybe not at first, maybe not in the end. But at some point, yes. At some point we always find each other.”

When he dared to open his eyes again, Gavin was still staring at him. There was snow in his eyes but he couldn’t tell if it was just a reflection or not.

His breath though, it came out in clouds.

“Thank you.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know
> 
> Also check out Rachel's thoughts on this one, or rather, what if rtw Ray would follow his Gavin?

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Aldebaran](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7879174) by [catboysam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catboysam/pseuds/catboysam)




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